


The Shadow Beneath Kells

by Savnock (Silex)



Category: Original Work
Genre: Dark Fantasy, Demons, Gen, Low Fantasy, Magic, Purple Prose, Swords & Sorcery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-28
Updated: 2019-07-28
Packaged: 2020-07-24 01:29:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20018023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silex/pseuds/Savnock
Summary: Juros was not one of the Brannen, the hillmen who were known by many as a curious and barbarous folk. Nor was he a man of the cities in which decadence and power could both be found with coin, he had no need for the protection offered by the high walls of Kothamur or desire for the dens and seraglios of wicked Rantesh.





	The Shadow Beneath Kells

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Rhampholeon34](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rhampholeon34/gifts).



Juros was not one of the Brannen, the hillmen who were known by many as a curious and barbarous folk. Nor was he a man of the cities in which decadence and power could both be found with coin, he had no need for the protection offered by the high walls of Kothamur or desire for the dens and seraglios of wicked Rantesh. No, Juros was one of the Yammesh who dwelled in the black flats far beyond the sea of sand that was the Amurian desert. 

Like all of the Yammesh Juros had not been borne of wholly human stock, in old times the men and women of the flats had lain with things from the outer dark hoping that it would give some of its mystery to their spawn. It galled him that the barbarians thought his kind risen corpses with their dark eyes and grey-stained skin, he had once laid low the great king Braigh for such insult and if need be he would do it again. He found humor in the tales told of his kind amongst the cities and towns of the empires, stories of dark magic and frantic couplings between siblings or with alien beasts. Such was his revery that he near forgot the reason he had risen from his sepulchral slumber. It had been the clocks, made of blown glass and rare chemics they had been attuned to the spheres and when those distant celestials came into alignment the clocks would ring in the hidden tones and rouse him so he could perfrom his rites.

It would be the zenith of the unseen moon and such an event had only happened once before in Juros long and wicked life. Such and event as the zenith would provide power and knowledge that many lesser workers of the high sciences could ever hope to grasp and as such it would need to be given proper due.

In the many years since he had last left his roost near the coast and his dark eyes could not help but linger upon the towers and streets that had risen since his internment. The lesser races had covered the bend of the twin rivers in that wonder of ugliness and beauty that could only be found amongst civilization. From atop his perch on the low mountain he could see great dykes and walls surrounded the settlement and people unnumbered looked as colored sand amongst the narrows. What had once been a collection of mud huts was now something between a village and a city, a burgeoning mass of humanity that would have driven any Brannen mad.

Long nailed hands stretched open and with a cackle of profane words Juros lunged forwards propelling his body from his perch and into the open air. As he plummeted his body changed, dark robes becoming dark wings and grey skin writhing into leathery scale. A great black crane winged down leaving naught but the echoes of dark magic in the air.

The crane glided soundless over the cobbled streets and heard the voices of a dozen races extoll the wonder and fortune of their home, the free city of Kells. It circled as unknowing children pointed fingers and the men of the piers made signs of fortune and tossed it fish and meat. Finally seeing what he sought Juros took his body in one final meandering loop that ended on the unworked shores of the the city on the rivers.

The bird dove into the froth at the waters edge and from the that froth emerged the Yammesh’s gaunt grey form. As he stepped from the water he drew up his hood and spoke silent words which made his skin take the pallor and vitality of the men who he had seen on the docks. He would need a sacrifice and since it appeared that the men of Kells shunned those who made coin in flesh he would need to collect his tithe instead of purchase. Thin fingers picked through the rocks near his feet and extracted a handful of stones worn smooth by the waters, a pinch of chemic dust and a few muttered words made the stones flow into fat golden coins. It would be best to start among the poor.

The urchin eyed him warily as he held out the coin, she was thin and had hair and skin both browned and bleached by the sun. He lied openly that he was a man of the docks and he needed someone to help him with errands and such was his false earnesty she did not see the perverse glint that she had come to fear.

The fat man stumbled drunkenly through the alley, he had soiled his breeches with vomit and piss and reeked as one would expect. Reedy grey arms strong as pythons coiled about his throat and despite his bulk they dragged him down easily into a hold which granted him quick slumber.

The watchman glared down at Juros seeing only the sorcerous mask, his beady eyes showed nothing of respect or care as he listened to the false tale of stolen gold. Juros lead him to the water edge and when they took their gaze from him they were enfolded in the sorcerors dark robes never to wake again. 

Juros move through the tunnels below the city with the ease of an predator in its den, here and their he would speak the words to unseal a hidden door or disperse dormant baleful magic. His charges lay dormant in the lining of his cloak, shrunk and frozen into statuettes until he freed them. He came before the idols of the fourteen children of Thog-Amthoum and before each he spoke a prayer in his native tongue and spilled some of his own unclean blood. Beyond those vile cyclopean relics lay the chamber he had prepared near a century past, the floor was of dark stone carried by magic from the quarries of his home and the walls were graven into the forms of the dark words from which all high science was borne. It was neither the walls nor floor that gave Juros pause for though they were impressive indeed they played a second part to the altar in the chambers center.

The sacrifices writhed atop that ancient cyclopean edifice, the altar made from a menhir stolen from the edge of the world. Each was now nude and incised with a thousand glyphs that could only be wrote upon living flesh. As they struggled the glyphs forms stories of obscene acts and even more obscene magics, Juros calmly copied it all upon his pages of his tome as he spoke the words he had pried from his mothers dying throat. Though the agonies of the words struck the sacrifices like a lash they could not cry out for their bodies were not their own and instead held in the sway of that which Juros roused from its elder slumber.

First he took the urchin girl. His slim grey hand caressed her flesh for a moment before his ivory dagger split her breast, with a hideous crunch he drove his hand into her corpse and drew out something gossamer and only half real. The fat man came second and his end was made with far less attention, the blade driving through his lungs and the Yammesh whispering as his lungs filled with blood. Last was the guard whose eyes held not the fear of the fat man nor the resigned terror of the girl, they burned with a fearsome and frantic hate which would have given a more human captor pause. With a theatrical flourish Juros leapt atop the man and drove the blade through each of those burning orbs lancing the brain behind them.

The souls burned like fresh tinder and Juros rushed from the altar as the Old thing beneath the city gave rise to one of its few children. Like wax the sacrifices forms softened and ran, flowing upwards they cooled into powerful sculpted legs and mighty thews, a broad chest and long arms like serpents followed. The Child stepped from the altar and raised one ophidian arm, from the rictus at its end emerged a deep voice which spoke in the words of the outer dark.

Above the city shook and trembled. Children woke crying as adults floundered for safety or arms, a great crack rang out and the stones of the dykes burst and a whole district was swept away. The twin rivers bucked and writhed like serpents and in their frenzied lashing the city lost even more of its form. The guards and watchmen caparisoned in leather and mail were helpless against the unforgiving tide as they would be against time or death itself. As the city died a mass of shadowy somethings flickered down the sky and where those shadows fell bodies disappeared or were rent as though by wire whips.

Beneath the dying city Juros stood protected and safe as he spoke with the child, it was older than the world and spoke of secrets lost before the first men had crawled from the mud. It spoke of mathematics used by the gods and devils to shape the world and it spoke of strange chemistries and magics by which matter could be changed, mostly it spoke lies. Juros copied it words down and consulted his notes from the sacrifices writhings and in the lines between he found new secrets which hinted at an obscene changing happening within him.

Juros and the child emerged from the hidden passage by the rivers edge, behind them the city of kells burned and the winged shadows harried the streets on silent wings. The child sprouted wings of its own and took a great leap as it darkened into another shadow against the bleak sky, Juros considered using his new knowledge to call it back but decided against it as he feared the consequence should it break free. Reaching out with new senses he called a young shadow to him and wooped in wicked joy as it swept him off into towards the low mountains on wings of gossamer night.


End file.
